


By Slow Degrees

by OzQueen



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: 5 Things, F/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Proposal attempts keep being thwarted by circumstances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-23 17:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20012266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/pseuds/OzQueen
Summary: Four times Rick O'Connell tried to ask Evelyn Carnahan to marry him (and one time he managed it with moderate success).





	By Slow Degrees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



* * *

The first time Rick thinks about proposing to Evelyn is on the journey back from Hamunaptra.

Evy has been curled into him, exhausted by the countless near-death experiences forced upon her since the start of their journey, and quite unembarrassed about snoring gently into his shoulder.

Rick tolerates her weight and warmth against him happily, even as his bruises start to ache and the Egyptian sun burns its way through the rag-tag clothing and protection he's wrapped around them both. It's only when he's starting to fall asleep and slide sideways off his camel he thinks about having to stop somewhere, and review their situation with a little rest behind them.

There have been shadows at the corners of his eyes and flirting around the horizon for hours now, tricks of the heat; tricks of a tired mind. Finally, one locks into place and grows darker and larger, and he and Jonathan mutually guide their lumbering camels towards it.

It's a small but welcome oasis — a dark pool of clean water surrounded by a sheltering wall of stones and scrubby trees, and Rick suggests they all stop for there for the night. The sun only has a couple of hours left in it, after all, and they won't make it back to Cairo without proper rest and fresh water.

He can tell both Jonathan and Evy want to protest such a long stay — reluctant to spend another night in the desert, and not enough distance between them and Hamunaptra to really feel safe yet — but they don't, each of them knowing exactly what the heat and the miles will take from them if they don't take proper precautions. A night of rest will be safer; they haven't slept properly since this whole adventure started.

They stop and wash their faces in the water, and tear apart the scrubby trees for kindling. They look back at the footprints their camels have left in the sand, and then ahead to where Cairo is still hidden beyond the far horizon, trying to convince themselves that they're closer to civilization than they are to Imhotep and the raw fury he dragged beneath the desert with him.

They make camp, and Jonathan drags the saddlebags through the sand and starts counting and organizing the various gold items and treasures like a desert-dwelling Ebenezer Scrooge.

Evy quietly takes Rick's hand and looks up at him. "Thank you for coming for me," she says, like he had a choice in the matter. She lifts her face and he obliges her with a kiss.

He leans his brow gently to hers. "I told you," he says, "I went to Hamunaptra for the treasure."

"Ah," she says with a grin, "that's right."

"Something tells me you're only going to increase in value."

She laughs, and pushes him away a little, and he thinks then and there, _I have to marry this girl before someone else does._

The thought stuns him. He has never wanted to marry anyone before, and he's only known Evy a week, and kissed her three times (well, two and a half times, they realized pretty quickly that kissing on the back of a camel was best left alone).

He thinks about it some more as the sun sets and the temperature drops, and they light a fire and eat the last of their food rations.

Marriage. Being _married_ to someone. Rick has always associated marriage with putting down roots. Four walls and a roof and the same scenery out the windows day after day. He could live with that eventually, perhaps, but not yet. Absolutely not yet.

He sneaks another look at Evelyn, sitting by the dark pool of the oasis, combing her hair with her fingers. The firelight loans her face a gentle glow, the sky behind her turning silver and then navy and then black, the stars burning icily overhead. He thinks that of all the women he's ever met, Evelyn seems to be the one least likely to settle for the same scenery every day. 

Maybe they could get married and take in some different scenery together. Travel the world, have some adventures together without, he hopes, involving the undead.

And then the wind shifts, and the dark water shows silver ruffles, and the grains of sand blow back against themselves, and Rick is reaching for his gun before he's even thought about it. Evy is on her feet and standing beside him, both of them bracing themselves for a monster to emerge from the dunes.

Jonathan looks up from buffing a gold medallion on his sleeve. "What?" he asks. He looks over his shoulder nervously.

Rick relaxes, and Evy shakes her head.

"Nothing," they both say.

It was nothing.

But they each keep flinching at the slightest movement, at the barest imagined shadow. And when the moon has risen, and Evelyn's body is warm against Rick's, the fire burning low and the pool of water in front of them reflecting the stars, Rick thinks again about casually asking her.

_Would you want to get married one day?_

_Married to me, that is. Would you maybe want to marry me one day?_

"Evelyn…" He looks down at her, at the way her eyes mirror the light of the desert moon, and how delicate and small her hand feels within his own. He thinks what he has done over the past week just to please her, to keep her safe, to keep her happy, and he thinks about keeping her safe and happy for the rest of her life _._

And then the feeling on the back of his neck crawls again, like he is being watched from afar — like the monster they banished back beneath the sand is still out there, lurking like a shark in dark water. Waiting.

And Rick suddenly can't bring himself to ask her here, where the shifting sand still makes them jump, and the heat plays tricks with their eyes, conjuring armies and shadows on the horizon.

 _Stupid,_ he thinks to himself, _to ask a broad to marry you when you've only known her a week._

"Forget it," he says, all nerve lost now.

She kisses him and smiles, and leans against his arm, sleepy and relaxed.

It had felt right for a moment, at least. And maybe she would have said yes.

 _There's plenty of time,_ he thinks. _Plenty of time ahead._

* * *

Rick hates snow. By association, he also hates Christmas.

He has not yet admitted it, because Evelyn delights in Christmas as much as she delights in the Egyptian heat. She strings paper chains and sparkling tinsel around the house, the Christmas tree loaded and in duress beneath the weight of candles, ribbons and ceramic ornaments.

She does seem to sense Rick's heart isn't aligned to the season, but she doesn't pry. The one demand she makes of him, and one he is quite willing to submit to, is that he adheres to the rules of mistletoe. And so, sometimes, he finds himself hanging around certain doorways and within certain alcoves a little more than usual.

"The thrill is lost if you abuse the system," she chides him, stretching up to kiss him as he lingers by the front door.

"I'm just playing by your rules, Evelyn," he says innocently. "And I'm insulted you think frequently kissing me won't always thrill you." 

"Are you not worried about quantity affecting quality?" she asks, disappearing ahead of him into the living room, where the Christmas tree sparkles obnoxiously in the corner.

"I haven't had any complaints!" he calls after her, and she laughs.

It's been three months since Hamunaptra, and they have barely left each other's side.

Jonathan, in a rare fit of brotherly responsibility, took Rick aside a few weeks after their return to ask what his intentions were.

"I want to marry her," Rick had said, without a whiff of scheming or ulterior motive about him.

"Oh," Jonathan had said in surprise. "Bravo! My blessings to you both!"

"I haven't asked her yet."

"Right, no. Well, let me know when you do, the champagne will be on me."

"I was thinking Christmas might be nice… might be appropriate," Rick had said, very aware of the short time frame between the return from Hamunaptra, and Christmas.

"Evy loves Christmas," Jonathan had answered absently, and that had been that.

And now it's Christmas, and it's wet and snowing and dark all the time, and Rick doesn't even have any childhood memories he can feel nostalgic about, because the orphanages he was in never really gave him a proper one, even the ones located in countries which celebrated it.

But he does have an engagement ring now, a pretty cluster of diamonds set in a gold band, and he's confident Evy will love it, and he's confident, mostly, that she will say yes when he asks her to marry him. So maybe this will be the first Christmas he enjoys.

_Oh, god, what if she says no…_

"I want to make room for the gifts under the tree," she says. "Will you move that chest for me?"

"Yeah, sure," Rick says, and he bends to swing it into his arms just as she says, "Mind yourself, it's very heavy."

His back twinges and he yelps and drops the chest again, so hard it splinters one of the floorboards. "Jesus!" he shouts, falling sideways against the Christmas tree so it topples over in a tinkling mess of needles and broken ornaments.

Pain roars along his spine and down the backs of his legs.

"What did you _do_?" Evy asks in dismay.

"You didn't tell me there were three thousand tons of Egyptian gold in that!" Rick snaps at her.

"Well I didn't expect you to lift it with your back, did I?" she snaps back, clearly put out by the broken floor and the destroyed tree. "I know exactly how strong you are, O'Connell, there's no need to show off to me!"

But then her voice softens and she's sympathetic as she helps him up the stairs, Rick limping and bent almost double. She undresses him and helps him into bed with such care and tenderness that all of his anger and embarrassment leaves him.

And yet, despite the strength of his desires, there is no chance of him getting down on one knee now. Not for days.

* * *

_Third time's a charm_ , Rick thinks to himself, confidently.

The river is cool and green, willow branches draped artfully along the banks, lilies and water iris in perfect bloom. There are no sounds but the singing of the birds, and the gentle lap of water against the hull of the little white rowboat.

This is only the third time Rick has rowed a boat, but it's going better than the previous two times. _Third time's a charm,_ he thinks to himself again.

"What are you looking so smug about?" Evy asks with a smile, trailing her fingers in the water, lounging on a plaid blanket, her legs propped up on the picnic basket.

"Can't a man look smug when he's rowing his lady love down a river?" Rick asks.

Evy rolls her eyes, but she's still smiling. She watches him row the boat and lets the gentle current tug at her fingertips.

Summer is languid and long. It's the first summer Evy has spent in England in years, she has told him. It was nice to be home, fixing up the old house which has been falling into disrepair since her parents died. They've painted and papered walls, fixed the bathrooms, installed a new range in the kitchen.

They've made a home together with a domino-fall of mutual decisions.

 _It's kinda nice_ , Rick thinks, reflecting on the past six months, _to put a few roots down, and see the same scenery through the windows._

The boat drifts through a curtain of willow, and he rehearses what he's going to say when they round the bend in the river ahead. They're almost there. He's been scouting for a quiet, romantic place for weeks now, and there's a stone bridge ahead, all beautiful arches and curves. The water irises are in full flower, and the water is so clear in the shallows you can see fish flashing their scales in the sun. He's going to take Evy's hand, tell her he loves her, and ask her to marry him.

No fancy ceremony or declarations beyond that. He doesn't want to tempt fate; if the third attempt goes to hell he might just have to consider fate doesn't want him to marry Evelyn Carnahan.

They finally round the bend in the river, Rick still rowing like a natural, thanks very much, and the bridge is beautiful. Evy sits up and admires it. The warm sun is golden and sparkling on the water around them, and the water irises are everywhere — pink and purple and yellow and white.

Rick lets the oars swing lazily in their brackets, his fingers nervously seeking the ring, which is tucked securely away in his shirt pocket.

"Evelyn," he says.

And then the boat, possibly in protest of being rowed so very well after being idle in the boat shed so very long, gives a loud _crack_ , and Evy jumps and looks at Rick with wide eyes. "I didn't like the sound of that."

"Oh shit," Rick says, just as the bottom of the boat begins to flood with water.

* * *

This time it will work for sure. Rick has pulled out all the stops. He's called in every favor he's owed, and promised a few favors in return — most of them to Jonathan.

The big, silent, dusty, dim library. Evelyn's favorite room in the big, silent, dusty, dim library. The domed glass above them, the table set directly beneath it, shelves and shelves of books, quiet and solemn all around them. Candles, and dinner with proper crockery and cutlery. An ice bucket and a bottle of very expensive champagne. All of it as far removed from blackened dinners cooked over desert campfires as one can get.

"Oh, Rick," Evy says, and Rick prides himself on the fact that she almost swoons at the sight of it.

They sit, and Rick lifts his glass to toast her, and thinks maybe it's best just to get it all out of the way right now. 

_Here we go,_ he thinks nervously.

Her eyes are wide and dark, her hair softly curling around her shoulders. She holds her glass towards him, waiting for his toast, the champagne bubbles fizzing gently, her smile lighting her whole face. She is beautiful, and Rick can't believe he's lucky enough to even have her opposite him, let alone be in the position to ask what he's about to ask.

"Evelyn," he says.

The door bursts open with such speed it causes the candles to topple, spilling their wax across the tablecloth. Evy dumps her champagne all over the flames before they even get the remotest chance to catch upon anything, and Rick jumps in surprise and tips his drink into his lap.

"Oh, good!" Jonathan shouts, clearly panicked and trying to act jolly. "You're both here, I thought so, I thought so! I just have this fellow here, looking to settle a little debt, and I told him we could —"

" _Jonathan!_ " Evelyn says, her brows drawing together in a deep frown.

" _Jonathan_ ," Rick says through gritted teeth.

Jonathan looks at him, and at the smoking wet wreck of Rick's failed romantic gesture, and his face pales. "Oh chaps," he says, "I'm so dreadfully sorry for interrupting, I'm just —"

"Oi!" A very large man, sweaty from what has obviously been a frantic chase, squeezes through the door and waves a gun in Jonathan's direction.

"Yes, hello!" Jonathan says, laughing weakly. "As I said, just a quick arrangement to make with my business partners here, won't be a tick…"

"Who is that?" Evy asks, hands on her hips.

"How much do you owe him?" Rick asks, eyeing the stranger warily.

"Four hundred quid!" the stranger says, overhearing.

"Jonathan!" Evy says, aghast.

"Now now," Johnathan chuckles, "it's three-fifty, three-fifty I believe was —"

"I added fifty for the chase," the man growls in response.

"It'd be cheaper just to let him kill you," Rick says.

"Yes, but you'd miss me terribly," Jonathan says. "Do you have any cash on you, by chance?"

"You think I carry four hundred pounds around in my pockets?" Rick asks.

"I only need a little more," Jonathan says, handing a wad of bills to Rick. "Just make up the difference, won't you? There's a good man. Then you can get back to your… your…" He gestures to the ruined dinner on the table between them. "Dreadfully sorry," he whispers, looking truly mortified. "Desperate measures, you see."

Rick takes what cash he has in his money clip, and he takes off his watch, and he presses it all back into Jonathan's hands. "If you don't take this problem as far away as possible, _I_ will kill you," he says.

Jonathan has the decency to look chastened. "Did you ask?" he asks in a low voice.

"No." Rick glances over at Evy, daintily blotting champagne out of her dress with a napkin. "Another time."

"If there's anything I can do," Jonathon offers.

Rick gives him a gentle shove towards the giant still lurking in the doorway. "Just go in peace, huh?"

"Right you are!" Jonathan says. He blows a kiss at Evy on his way out. "Dreadfully sorry, again!" he calls, and the door slams shut.

Evy smiles at Rick, and gestures at their dinner. "I only spilled one glass," she says. "I think we can salvage the rest."

"Almost all of it," Rick agrees.

Almost.

* * *

This time. This will be the time, Rick is sure of it.

He's organized everything. It will be just the two of them, doing what they apparently do best — exploring an impossibly ancient hidden temple, rumored to belong to two lovers, the stone structure almost buried entirely beneath the sand. Ardeth is camped at the entrance to ensure no intruders, and Jonathan has been left thousands of miles away, back in England. No interruptions.

Just he and Evy, and the silence of a place nobody else has been in for thousands of years, the walls etched with ancient declarations of love and beauty. Evy leads him onwards, making awed remarks and schooling him excitedly on the hieroglyphs and art. He follows her, smiling, but he keeps his eyes peeled for any potential mishaps.

He refuses to be interrupted again.

"This is beautiful," Evelyn says, craning her head back to look at the high stone ceiling. They are well beneath the surface of the desert now, sheltered by thick stone and sand, and everything is cool, and dark, and quiet.

There are giant webs of spider silk hanging in ragged sheets, and enormous tapestries dulled with age and dust draping the walls, most of them still hanging, though Rick can see a few which have fallen, the weight of age and Egyptian sand too much for them. The walls glow with the gentle flicker of torch light, words of adoration and promise reaching away to the shadows.

"Do you know what they did here?" Evy asks, running her hands gently over the stone altar in the middle of the room.

"Please, _please_ don't tell me it has anything to do with a horrible death," Rick says.

"Anybody laid upon this altar was already dead," she says. "I must say, though, I didn't expect to find this place in such marvelous condition." She gives a light laugh and looks at Rick over her shoulder. "Almost as though someone has been taking care of the place while everyone was gone, wouldn't you say?"

"Evelyn, why?" he groans. He glances around, and now he can't be sure if it's the fluttering torch light, or if one of the tapestries is swaying gently.

"Oh," Evy says scornfully, "there's no such thing as tempting fate."

Rick tries to ignore the slight rumble in the floor. "No, of course not."

"Although," she adds delicately, "I'll admit to having been wrong before."

"I can't _believe_ this," Rick says accusingly, and she reaches for his hand as the sand throws itself around them, a deep bellow growling up through the earth and through the stone walls.

Through the stirring dust, Rick sees another tapestry sway, and a silhouette staggers forth, bone and ancient flesh held together with the remnants of death wrappings.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" he says. He hurls his torch towards the staggering silhouette, to no avail — the torch flies past it and hits the tapestry behind it, which immediately starts to scorch and smoke. The mummy stops in its tracks, apparently stunned by the sight of flames.

Evy looks positively overjoyed. "Did you bring a vial of water from the Ibis Oasis?"

"What?" Rick chokes. 

"The water he and his lover would bathe in, according to the legend —"

" _Why_ ," Rick cries, "would I know anything about this?" He pulls her behind him.

"Why else would you bring me here?" she asks in surprise. "Are you telling me I've been playing along with this for absolutely no reason?"

Rick stares at her in disbelief.

"O'Connell!" Evy cries, obviously exasperated. "Everybody knows the story of the Ibis Oasis and the Guard of the Undead! Of course, to most people it's a story, but given our history, a little fact-checking into the sources wouldn't have gone astray —"

"I'm going to kill Ardeth," Rick growls. "So much for his assurances we'd be safe." 

"You honestly didn't know?" Evy asks, her eyes narrowed.

"Of course I didn't!" Rick says, fumbling for his gun. "I would not willingly walk you into a room guarded by _that_."

The mummy screeches again, and the stone walls shake.

"We stopped at that very oasis, Rick!" Evy says, hands pressed over her eyes like she's trying to keep a sudden headache at bay. "On the way back from Hamunaptra! Remember?" She drops her hands and her expression softens. She gives him a tender sort of smile. "I think I felt it then, you know. The power of it. I knew I was so in love with you." 

"I'm surprised you didn't give me the enormous backstory of the place," Rick says, though he remembers his early temptation to propose by those inky waters. "Where was your running narrative then, huh? How am I supposed to figure these things out by myself?"

"It's a well-known legend!" Evy says, ignoring almost everything he's saying. "He —" She points at the mummy, which still seems stunned to find his possessions being eaten away by hot licking flames "—guards the last known resting place of his true love; he chases away anyone he thinks may wish to follow her into the afterlife! Of course, most people dismiss it as merely a ghost story, though I suppose there are others who visit here to see if they can win him over, like a way to measure one's honor..."

Rick is definitely going to kill Ardeth. A way of measuring one's honor sounds exactly like the sort of task a Medjai might approve of and not necessarily disclose to the foolhardy idiot marching straight towards it.

The mummy finally staggers away from the roaring flames and finds itself blocked by the altar. It bellows again, dust shaking free from the stone ceiling.

"I'm guessing it considers us unworthy," Rick says nervously.

"You might be in with a shot if you had brought water from the oasis," Evy says. "Or if you were willing to sacrifice me on that altar." 

"Does it have to be you?" Rick asks, still thinking of Ardeth.

"Rick, you brought me here with this huge air of secrecy!" Evy says. "You brought Ardeth, and you've been on edge all day! Of course I thought you were bracing yourself for another round with a mummy. I've been waiting for something to jump out at us ever since we got here!"

Rick finds himself in a helpless tail-spin of panic. "I've been on edge because I was going to ask you to marry me!"

"Oh," Evelyn says in surprise. "Yes, actually, that makes sense too."

"It does?" Rick splutters. "I've been trying to ask you for months now!"

"Yes, I know," Evy says apologetically, taking his hand and pulling him away from the flaming destruction of priceless tapestries being destroyed before their eyes, the mummy staggering around in furious disbelief. "I thought the library was beautiful; I was so angry with Jonathan for interrupting you."

"How did you know?" Rick asks, feeling almost insulted that his carefully-kept secrets were apparently so obvious. "You could have told me!"

"Well, I thought that might make you more nervous than you already were," Evelyn says reasonably. "And I wanted to give you another chance, I suppose. You've been trying so hard."

"I don't believe this," Rick says in dismay.

"Oh, don't be upset." She coughs a little on the building smoke, and points past the mummy, which is a solid silhouette of decay against the bright wall of flames. "I think if we can run past it, we can get out over there. Unless," she says, "you wanted to take a moment and ask me something?"

"Right now?" he asks in disbelief.

She stands in front of him and smiles expectantly, smoke whirling blue and black through the air.

He sighs. "Evelyn…"

"Oh, wait, put that away," she says, steering his gun towards its holster. "I won't be proposed to with that pointed at me, thank you very much."

Rick holsters his gun again, and the mummy bellows angrily from somewhere behind the altar, now completely lost in the billowing clouds of smoke coming off the ancient tapestries.

"I wanted this to be perfect," he says in dismay. "I wanted there to be candles —"

"There are flames," she says, coughing again.

The air is hot and close. "I tried to make it romantic. So many times, Evy, and it all kept going wrong. I wanted to do something that would make you happy. I wanted it to be us _alone…_ "

She looks sympathetic. "We don't have to count the undead," she says comfortingly.

"I just wanted to show you that I can plan, and look after you, and treat you the way you deserve to be treated," Rick says, feeling more miserable by the second. "But all of my plans get shot to hell, and most of the time you absolutely _refuse_ to be looked after, and it's hard to spoil you when so many things go wrong and things keep coming alive to try and kill us."

The sand is hissing in the heat, and the mummy's bellowing is shaking the ceiling.

Evy wraps her arms around Rick's shoulders. "You plan very well," she says, "even if things do tend to — well, they do tend to fall apart rather easily, but I am not the sort of girl who wholly appreciates the straight and narrow, Rick."

He bows his head in agreement.

"And as for looking after me," Evy says, "I know I make it difficult, but oh, you do such a lovely job of it." She smiles at him. "I would most certainly be in a worse state without you — dead, probably, though I'm not ruling that out just yet." She tucks her head against his shoulder for a moment to cough again. "Rick," she says, once recovered, "you sacrifice so much and keep me so happy I couldn't possibly ask for more from you." She raises her eyebrows at him as the tapestry behind her falls in a roar of sparks and ash. "Now get down on your knees and ask me properly."

"Yes ma'am." He sinks down in front of her and clasps her hands, the smoke making his eyes water and his lungs burn. "Evelyn Carnahan, I love you," he says. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she says. "Now for heaven's sake, let's get out of here before we're both killed."

"What about the mummy?" Rick asks, and it roars at them from somewhere within the dark cloud of smoke.

Evy tugs at his hand. "Well, if he follows us he follows us," she says. "Does Ardeth have a vial of oasis water?" She coughs again, and shakes her head. "We'll deal with that later."

"Tempting fate again," Rick accuses. 

She laughs, breathless and pink-cheeked with the heat of the blazing fire. "Divine intervention be damned, for I know this," she says, holding his face in her hands and smiling up at him. "We will live long, wonderful lives together, happily married, blessed and content, forever and ever and ever. In this life, and all of those which come after. And should the gods of fate want to fight with us, I warn them now — we will fight back." 

"Nicely done," Rick says, kissing her.

She grins at him, and grabs his hand. "Now," she says, "run for your life."

* * *


End file.
